How far will you go?
by Matthew G Given
Summary: Future fic. How far is Beckett willing to go to protect those she cares about?


******How Far will you go?**

**Don't own Castle and I never will.**

In retrospect it was somewhat surprising just how little it had taken to get Kate Beckett to cross the line. At least it was surprising to anyone who didn't know or understand just how much Roy Montgomery had meant to her and how close they had been. In truth Beckett loved him even more then her own father,he had done more for her,and as far as Beckett was concerned he was the ultimate cop and no one,least of all a nosy reporter who had never worked a day on the job had the right to slander his good name.

It had all started when a middle aged female reporter name Jane Staton who worked at a small struggling New York news paper had gotten premission from the mayor's office to do a story on Montgomery by following around the detectives the heroic cop had helped train and who knew him best. At first things had gone smoothly,Jane even got along with Castle and Gates but then things took a nose dive. Jane started to dig around in things that were none of her business,she started working late on the story and interviewing contacts with out the detectives. She didn't seem to trust them any more and three weeks later she was still working on a story that was supposed to take her three weeks.

Beckett had been with drawn and panicking for days. Castle tried to calm her down but there was no calming Kate Beckett when someone was threatening the memory of Roy Montgomery. That was when she got a message from Senator Bracken asking her to meet with him in a public place. She decided not to tell Castle and just pretended to be working late one night.

She met Bracken in a cafe that had a lot of windows. Their talk was long and heated and Beckett couldn't recall exactly what was said but the upshot was that Jane had nearly worked out what Montgomery had done and it looked like she was going to publish the story. If that happened Bracken would be exposed and he let Beckett know that if that happened so would Montgomery. At first Beckett wasn't sure she could do what was needed to protect Montgomery but that was when Bracken made his fetal logical argument.

"I have to speak for victims and let them have justice no mater what." She insisted

"Nonsense." Bracken had answered with a cold smile. "You don't get justice for the victims of your friends and this woman is going to hurt the man who meant more to you then anything." Beckett had been about to protest but Bracken didn't let her. "You never got justice for the FBI agent Montgomery and his friends killed and you have helped cover up that crime for years. Then there was that murder last year you stopped looking into when I informed you that if I was ever taken down I would make sure Montgomery's public image went down with me. What is getting one reporter to drop one story compared to that?"

Beckett hung her head in shame but she had to concede Bracken of all people was right about her.

"You shouldn't feel ashamed." Bracken explained looking her in the eyes. "You just protect your own like everyone. It's only a question of degrees,how far are you willing to go for someone who gave up everything for you? How far are you willing to go for your family? Montgomery made one mistake but in the end he was a hero,shouldn't he be remembered as one?"

That did it for Beckett,He was right. What right did some muck raking bitch who was just after money have to tarnish the image of a great man like Montgomery? She didn't,she had to be stopped and Beckett owed it to the man who had done so much for her to protect his image and do whatever it took to make sure the world remembered him as the hero he truly.

She let Bracken know she would handle it and then he left after shooting her a smile that made her skin crawl. Beckett then shut down and stopped letting her emotions think for her. She knew what she had to do and she was going to do it. She would protect Montgomery and his family from this evil bitch no matter what the cost was.

The next day Beckett talked to Jane and tried to convince her that nothing she had was any real proof but Jane insisted that she had found some files that proved Montgomery was a dirty cop. Beckett kept her panic down and used the same acting skills she had used to full Castle into thinking he had seen a murder out his window all those years ago to look surprised. She convinced Jane to let her see the files at her news paper office latter that night after she got off of work. Jane had stated repeatedly that she knew Beckett was honest so she had no problem meeting her alone.

That was when Beckett had to make a choice. At lease she decided that no one had the right to slander Montgomery after all the good he had done. He had died for his crimes and that was enough. It wasn't anyone outside of "the family"'s business. She decided she would have to steal those files and destroy them.

Before meeting Jane Beckett went to a shady part of town she had once worked as a uniform and bought a old revolver that had no serial numbers from a drug dealer. It was _Just in case._ She told herself. She would never use it. Still she needed to be prepared because if there was one thing Montgomery had taught her it was that the family came fist and nothing outside of your bond with other cops mattered. Beckett was going to make him proud that night.

When she got to the office Beckett had been shocked by what she saw. It was more then enough to have Montgomery declared a fraud and have his name struck down as that of a hero. Beckett yelled at the woman,she pleaded,she tried to make her understand what this would do to Montgomery's wife and kids but the selfish bitch would not listen. All she cared about was her story. That was when Beckett tried to take the box of documents,but the stupid bitch wouldn't let them go with out a fight. At some point the gun went off and the reporter fell to the floor dead. Beckett went into shock. Her whole world had changed,at that moment she had become a killer. Still Beckett was practical if nothing else. No one had seen her enter the building and there were no security cameras in the office of such a small paper. What was important now was to protect Montgomery. She asked herself what the characters in a Richard Castle book would do. That calmed her. She picked up the box of documents and the gun and took them with her.

She drove for hours in a daze. At last she decided that even if she did get caught she would not take Roy's memory with her. She thought she would be crying at this point but instead she just shut down completely. She throw the gun,the jacket she was wearing,and the box of papers into the Hudson. There it was done she thought.

It wasn't of course. She should have learned after so many years on the force there was a price to pay for taking a life. First she had nightmares and Castle tried to help but since she couldn't tell him or why she was having them they could not help. The nightmares started when Beckett had seen Janes for young children and her husband show up at the funeral. After that she saw the faces of the children she had wrong. No,not wronged! She told herself. That woman had no business poking her nose around where it didn't belong and Beckett had only done what was needed to protect the family. Still telling herself that didn't help with the nightmares. In her nightmares the faces of the children she has seen on the news(the oldest of which was 19 the same age Beckett had been when she lost her mother)came out of the darkness and demanded to know where their mother was. It started taking more and more scotch for Beckett to just get a few hours of sleep.

They only got worse after the death was ruled the result of a random office break in. It only got worse It got to the point where she was running off of coffee and two hours of sleep or less a night. The only way to go on was to shut down. She broke it off with Castle and had Gates kick him out of the 12ths. Castle didn't understand and was heartbroken but Beckett had to go down the path she was going alone.

Finally one year to the day after the murder it had gotten to be too much. Beckett turned herself in. This was a shock to everyone. No one could believe it and Castle tried to come and see her in jail and at the trial but she had refused to see him.

She plead guilty so there would not be an investigation. She came up with a story that would have done Castle proud to explain the murder. She said that Jane had gotten pictures of her cheating on Castle that she was going to publish so she had killed her to get the pictures back. The Jury had no pity on a dirty cop who killed for that reason. She got life with out parole.

Castle left New York and never came back. Instead he traveled the world and got into playboy exploits that made his others look like a Sunday school picnic. Beckett hated reading about those and stopped reading any news paper reports about Castle after a while. Castle got back to writing after a couple of years and Beckett got his first couple of new books out of the prison library but couldn't finish them. The old Richard Castle style was gone. There were no longer good guys or bad guys,it was all shades of gray and justice was almost never served. Sure the mystery was always solved but the killers either got away or it turned out the heroes had to do something even worse then what the killers had done to catch them. The critics loved these books and they were the best selling books that he had ever written but Beckett could not read them They were not the works of the old Richard Castle,that man had died the day she had plead guilty to murder. This was the hardest part to take because Beckett could tell she had broken Castle. She wished he had never met her because he would have been so much better off.

The fact that the scandal had happened on Gate's watch did not make her popular at one police plaza and a few months after the scandal broke she took an early retirement. No captain wanted detectives on their squad who had worked with a cop who had committed murder so shortly after Beckett was convicted Ryan and Esposito gave into pressure and left the force. Esposito returned to the military where he got a reputation for being the best when it came to train special forces. Ryan went into private security. The hours were better and he made more money so in a way it had been the best thing for him and his growing family. Still it was not what he had loved doing. Both of them visited from time to time but not often since Beckett just didn't know what to say to them. Lanie kept doing what she always did and visited Kate often. They would chat lightly about what was happening in the outside world. Beckett needed this escape. Still every once in a while Lanie would press Beckett for the real story. She could tell when Beckett was lying. When this happened Beckett would shut down and the visit would end then and there.

The first time Beckett really cried was when she found out her father had turned back to the bottle. She spent a whole day crying then. Still after a while when he visited her he announced that he was sober and even dating again so maybe that had not turned out so bad.

Bracken went on to be President and he was a very popular one too. Beckett could never forgive him for what he did but she had to admit he seemed to be doing a lot of good for the rest of the country. It kept the nation out of war and did a good job looking after working class people so maybe even that was worth it.

Life wasn't easy for an ex cop in prison but Beckett was tough and could take care of herself. She had collected a few scares over the years but it was nothing too painful that she could not live with.

As Beckett sat in her cell that day thinking about her life she asked herself if it was worth it. She couldn't decide and then she remembered Roy's smiling face and all the lessons he taught her and how bravely he had died for her. She concluded that yes it was worth it. She wasn't dead and all she had lost were a few night's sleep and her freedom. After he had given his life for her wasn't that a fair trade?

Yes it was. For the first time in years she found herself happy that day. She could stand up proudly because while things had not turned out as perfectly as she had hoped it was an imperfect world and she had stood by her Captain. To the world at large Roy Montgomery would always be hero and that made all this worth it. Beckett thought to herself with a smile.

**Sorry this was a plot that just would not leave my head and I needed to get it down quickly. What did you think?**


End file.
